Stephen King is one of the most popular and prolific authors writing today. Readers’ Advisory Librarian Joyce Sarricks explains: “No one writes ‘just like’ Stephen King. His books transcend genre writing and offer us compelling, page-turning stories. Any description or attempt to classify his writing diminishes him and his power over our imagination. Those who dismiss King as a ‘genre’ [Horror] writer are missing one of the greatest storytellers of our time, a writer who skillfully combines appealing heroes and terrible villains with fast-paced stories drawn from our innermost nightmares and set in evocative landscapes.” Here are some authors who offer similar satisfactions:
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
This is the story of a diabolical carnival that wreaks havoc on the lives of the people of a small Illinois town, much like the one in which Bradbury grew up. In it, two young boys begin to encounter evil secrets when a lightning rod salesman gives them one of his contraptions covered with mystical symbols. Also try The October Country.
Homebody by Orson Scott Card
After losing his daughter in a car wreck, Don Lark buries himself in the work of restoring a magnificent, long-neglected Southern mansion, but when he unearths an old tunnel in the cellar, he stirs up the demons of the house's tragic past. His new neighbors, Miz Judea and Miz Evelyn, try to convince him not to repair the mansion, telling him that it is dangerous to continue the restoration. He discovers that the house is haunted by a squatter, Sylvie, who also implores him to leave it as it is. Also try Lost Boys and Treasure Box.
Bad Men by John Connolly
Years after the massacre that wiped out a colony of settlers on the small Maine island of Sanctuary, rookie officer Sharon Macy and policeman Joe Dupree team up to protect the island's residents from a band of vengeful killers. Also try The Killing Kind.
The Good House by Tananarive Due
After her 15-year-old son Corey’s suicide, Angela Toussaint spent several months in a mental hospital. Now divorced and focused on her work, she receives word of potential buyers of her grandmother’s house in Sacajawea, Washington, in which Corey died. Realizing that she must put the tragedy to rest, Angela decides to go to the house to try to understand exactly what happened. Sacajawea is, however, a town beset by evil, in which stomachaches lead to suicide in apparently healthy, well-balanced persons. Also try My Soul to Keep.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Richard Mayhew's life is forever changed after he rescues a young girl named Door and finds himself living in a city of monsters, saints, murderers and angels. He must help Door on her mission to save this strange, underworld kingdom from destruction. Also try Gaiman’s Hugo Award Winning novel American Gods.
From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz
This spellbinder chronicles the lives of three unique individuals. Bartholomew Lampion, born under miraculous yet tragic circumstances, has the most unusual and mesmerizing eyes ever seen. Angel, born in another city at the same time as Bartholomew, is also a miracle child; as she grows, she demonstrates the ability to see the world as it really exists. At the time of their births, ruthless and cunning Junior dreams that someone named Bartholomew will lead to his downfall. While attempting to find the nemesis he knows only by name, Junior is relentlessly pursued by a police detective. The three lives intertwine as this saga barrels along toward their inevitable confrontation. Also try The Taking.
The Walking by Bentley Little
As a strange epidemic characterized by a series of deaths and a reanimation of the dead – who are drawn to an unknown destination – spreads across the country, investigator Miles Huerdeen follows a nightmarish quest to uncover a secret as old as time itself. Also try The Association.
Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon
Twelve-year-old Cory Mackenson's father finds a dead man handcuffed to a car's steering wheel that has plunged into Zephyr's Lake in 1964, and they realize that all is not as it seems in their quiet town. McCammon is a multiple Bram Stoker Award winner. Also try Swan Song and Speaks the Nightbird.
Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
A monster on the loose in New York City's American Museum of Natural History provides the hook for this high-concept, high-energy thriller. A statue of the mad god Mbwun, a monstrous mix of man and reptile, was discovered by a Museum expedition to South America in 1987. Now, it is about to become part of the new Superstition Exhibition at the museum (here renamed the "New York Museum of Natural History"). But as the exhibition's opening night approaches, the museum may have to be shut down due to a series of savage murders that seem to be the work of a maniac – or a living version of Mbwun. Also try the rest of the Pendergast series.
Second Child by John Saul
Ostracized by her peer group and tormented by her cruel stepsister, Melissa Holloway finds solace in her friendship with the spirit of D'Arcy Malloy, a serving girl who died in her house in Secret Cove, Maine, a century before and whose tragically spurned affections mirror Melissa's own plight. Also try Guardian.
A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons
Returning to the small Illinois town of his childhood to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, Dale Stewart leases an empty farmhouse of a long-dead friend, who had been murdered in the summer of 1960, and finds that the house is haunted. Also try Simmons’ Stoker Award winning Carrion Comfort.
Mister X by Peter Straub
Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan experiences a seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious and malevolent figure in black whom Ned calls Mr. X. This year Ned learns from his mother, who is on her deathbed, the name of his long-absent father and other disturbing information about his own identity and that of his entire fantastic family. Also try If You Could See Me Now.
Midnight Mass by F. Paul Wilson
In Wilson’s creepy, terrifying thriller, vampires are rapidly taking over the planet. They’ve got Europe, and now they’re encroaching on the East Coast of the U.S. A small group of determined humans embark on a plan of resistance that includes the destruction of the vampire king of New York. The undead might have every advantage, but the likable, compelling mortals in this gripping read aren’t giving up easily. Readers who enjoy fast-paced action thrillers may also like Wilson’s Repairman Jack series, beginning with The Tomb.